# Miles, kilometres and England.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 20, 2005, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544 "2005-09-20T15:41:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/1 "2005-09-20T15:41:18Z")
I was an early convert to the metric system, being introduced to it as a schoolboy in the 1970s. I remember the great hue and cry from Americans who found it confusing. (Confusing? Try finding the square footage of an acre. sqrt[5280 x 5280 / 640.] 208.710325571113035911926973932559 Not to mention that there’s a peculiar number of feet in a mile.) So we barely use it. One- and two-litre bottles of water and soft drinks, but we still have quarts and gallons of milk.
I met an English girl in Europe in the early-1980s. I mentioned a distance in km. in one of my letters to her, and she commented that it was odd that I did. I’ve since noticed that the English often use miles. I’ve also heard English people say they are _x_-foot-_y_ when saying their height.
How common are English-unit measurements in England?
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### Author:  [@Aguecheek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aguecheek)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/2 "2005-09-20T15:51:11Z")
I’m not English (or even British), but in Canada, we’re somewhat stuck 1/2 way between Imperial and Metric. Personal height and weight, unofficially, are measured in feet and pounds. Distance and non-personal weight are measured in kilometres, metres, and kilos.
I don’t have an official answer for this, but I suspect that part of it is due to the fact that the changeover was only recently. It wasn’t until the mid-70s that Canada went metric, so for those of us born before then (or soon thereafter), some Imperial units of measurement still stand. I’d be interested in talking to a kid say…10-15 years from now and finding out how they measure things.
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### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/3 "2005-09-20T15:52:20Z")
I believe that stones (14 pounds) are still in current use in Britain.
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### Author:  [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/4 "2005-09-20T16:08:54Z")
Like **Aguecheek** , don’t know about England, but I see the same thing in Canada. I think it’s partly the result of “soft” metrification, and partly due to having lived through the conversion.
Personally, I was educated in the “Imperial” system, and still use feet and inches for amounts I can measure (my height, the length of a board, the width of my lot) while using kilometres for driving and such. I use Celsius for all temperatures except cooking (as my cookbooks are mostly in Fahrenheit - except the British ones, which use gas burner settings :dubious: ), it’s just more convenient than Fahrenheit. I use kilograms for most weights, but still weigh myself in pounds, and think of tanks as weighing x tons. I buy litres of milk and gas, but again use cups and teaspoons for most cooking (I was never too sure of how the Imperial system worked for pints/quarts/gallons etc. anyway, and the Americans using the wine gallon instead didn’t help).
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### Author:  [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/5 "2005-09-20T16:11:16Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> How common are English-unit measurements in England?
Short answer – it depends on what you’re buying/talking about.
Distances are still given in miles, beer is bought in pints, if someone asks for your height, you tend to give it in feet and inches, and your weight in stones and pounds. However, with the UK having joined the EU, officially, weights have to be measured in kilograms and grams, and fluid volumes have to be measured in litres.
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### Author:  [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/6 "2005-09-20T16:12:25Z")
Oh, and as an afterthought, temperatures are given in Celsius.
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### Author:  [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/7 "2005-09-20T16:28:41Z")
Conversion to metric has been a long drawn out process going back over decades. I was taught metric units in school back in the very early 1970s, but actual conversion in everyday life has been very piecemeal with, for example, a long period when carpet was sold in meters yet milk sold in pints. At one time pre-packaged goods had to be sold in kg whilst loose items could still be sold in lb/oz. Distances are one of the last official strongholds and all road signs are still in miles to this day.
Personally, I am happy to measure everything in meters and kg, except that I only know my height in feet/inches and weight in stones/lb! I know I am not alone in this.
I blame this piecemeal nature of our conversion for the reluctance to give up imperial measurements in casual usage. Whilst you have a dual system it is natural to stick with the familiar. If we had been forced to convert over a very short period, the initial pain and confusion would soon have given way to general acceptance. After all, we managed to convert from the arcane pounds/shillings/ pence to the more rational decimal system of 100p-to-a-pound we use now.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/8 "2005-09-20T16:34:22Z")
> [@ticker](#):
>
> After all, we managed to convert from the arcane pounds/shillings/ pence to the more rational decimal system of 100p-to-a-pound we use now.
Actually, I kind of like the ‘three-and-six’ thing. Of course, I’ve enver had to _live_ with it! When I visited England it was decimal. I think I remember a _Monty Python_ episode that poked fun at the conversion. So _how_ many knuts were in a pound?
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/9 "2005-09-20T16:37:42Z")
A few other random examples:
Petrol: litres
Maths & science lessons: centimetres, litres, kilogrammes
Milk: sometimes pints, sometimes litres
Spirits & wine in pubs: millilitres
Actually, I’m struggling to think of any use of imperial measurements not already mentioned, other than in casual situations.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/10 "2005-09-20T17:17:07Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> (Confusing? Try finding the square footage of an acre. sqrt[5280 x 5280 / 640.] 208.710325571113035911926973932559
?
An acre is defined as 43,560 sq. ft.
What you’re doing is taking the number of feet in a mile, squaring it, and dividing by the number of acres in a square mile. You’re just doing a roundabout calculation to get a number that starts out as defined. I don’t know why you’re then taking the square root of that number. That’s meaningless.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/11 "2005-09-20T17:29:15Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> I don’t know why you’re then taking the square root of that number.
To find out how many feet on each side an acre is, if it were square.
(I didn’t know how many square feet are in an acre. I only knew that there are 640 in a square mile.)
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### Author:  [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/12 "2005-09-20T17:37:34Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> Actually, I kind of like the ‘three-and-six’ thing. Of course, I’ve enver had to _live_ with it! When I visited England it was decimal. I think I remember a _Monty Python_ episode that poked fun at the conversion. So _how_ many knuts were in a pound?
There is still a pub, the [Kings Head](http://www.kingsheadtheatre.org/Pub.htm) in Islington, London, where the owner refuses to let go of the old money. All prices are in pounds and shillings.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/13 "2005-09-20T17:43:34Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> To find out how many feet on each side an acre is, if it were square.
But that has nothing to do with the square footage of an acre. Acres are simply measurements of area; they can be square but rarely are.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/14 "2005-09-20T17:49:07Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#):
>
> But that has nothing to do with the square footage of an acre. Acres are simply measurements of area; they can be square but rarely are.
Doesn’t matter. It’s an illustration of how cumbersome Imperial units can be. Contrast the lengths of the sides of a hypothetical square acre (that is, the shape of the acre is square; not ‘square acres’, which would be redundant) with a hypothetical square hectare. Each side would be 208.710325571113035911926973932559 feet long, compared to the hectare’s 100 meters (exactly) long.
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### Author:  [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/15 "2005-09-20T17:50:09Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> Actually, I kind of like the ‘three-and-six’ thing. Of course, I’ve enver had to _live_ with it! When I visited England it was decimal. I think I remember a _Monty Python_ episode that poked fun at the conversion. So _how_ many knuts were in a pound?
People are stubborn, or lazy, or both plus a lot of other things. When I was in England in WWII guys would ask the price of something and be told, say, “Two pound, 8 shillings, 6 pence.” So they would try to convert that to dollars and cents to see how expensive, or cheap, it was. I kept telling them - Look, your monthly pay is 25 pounds ( pounds were about $4.75 at that time). So almost two an a half pounds is about 10% of your monthly income. Do you want to spend that much on a single item?
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/16 "2005-09-20T17:52:41Z")
> [@David Simmons](#):
>
> People are stubborn, or lazy, or both plus a lot of other things. When I was in England in WWII guys would ask the price of something and be told, say, “Two pound, 8 shillings, 6 pence.” So they would try to convert that to dollars and cents to see how expensive, or cheap, it was. I kept telling them - Look, your monthly pay is 25 pounds ( pounds were about $4.75 at that time). So almost two an a half pounds is about 10% of your monthly income. Do you want to spend that much on a single item?
When I was in Europe I’d see people with their calculators trying to figure out how much things cost in dollars. I thought in terms of the monetary units used in the country I was in. Never saw the point in figuring out how much it was in dollars.
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### Author:  [@fortytwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fortytwo)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/17 "2005-09-20T18:11:36Z")
I know the question was about England but Scotland and Wales are still in the same hotch potch of mixed imperial and metric weights and measures too. I imagine it will take long time before we change from our miles per hour/gallon
Some parts of the UK are a bit behind the times though.
1 ounce = 480 grains
1 ounce = 24 scruples
1 ounce = 20 pennyweights
1 ounce = 8 drams.
( And never forget that 1 gallon of beer = half a peck)
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/18 "2005-09-20T18:54:56Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#):
>
> Doesn’t matter. It’s an illustration of how cumbersome Imperial units can be. Contrast the lengths of the sides of a hypothetical square acre (that is, the shape of the acre is square; not ‘square acres’, which would be redundant) with a hypothetical square hectare. Each side would be 208.710325571113035911926973932559 feet long, compared to the hectare’s 100 meters (exactly) long.
The whole point of a unit of area is that the shape is irrelevant…but in any case, the acre has perfectly logical dimensions - one chain by one furlong.
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### Author:  [@Fridgemagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fridgemagnet)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/19 "2005-09-20T19:38:26Z")
Here’s a thing: The area of an A0-size sheet of paper is 1 square metre. A1 is 0.5 square metres, A2 is 0.25 sq m, A3 0.125 sq m, and so on. Fold a sheet in half along its length and it forms the next size down. How neat is that?
We’re at a halfway stage with temperature in the UK. Low temperatures are most often thought of in degrees Celcius (e.g. frost of -3), high temperatures are still fondly represented by farenheight (e.g. 90 in the shade). But we have updated the metric scale even - meteorologists now always say degrees Celcius, never Centigrade.
Proper geeks work in Kelvin.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miles-kilometres-and-england/322544/20 "2005-09-20T19:50:42Z")
A-series paper isn’t just defined by the area but also by the dimensions, which are in the proportion 1:sqrt2 (don’t know if the symbol can be done properly!)
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